


Then I Saw Him in the Crowd

by saretton



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Takes Care of Crowley (Good Omens), Biblical Reinterpretation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I have written this thing to get it out of my system, I showed him the kingdoms of the world, Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Modern Era, Religious Discussion, Scene: Crucifixion of Jesus 33 AD (Good Omens), Slight Canon divergence somewhere I think?, TRUST ME there's comfort in the end, but you can read it too!, discussion of Herod's Massacre of the Innocent, when Crowley was still called Crawly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23476879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saretton/pseuds/saretton
Summary: Aziraphale spoke again. “Do you want to tell me what’s been on your mind? That is,” he cleared his throat, “if it can make you feel any better.”------The fic about the friendship between Crowley and Jesus that probably no one asked for.
Relationships: Crowley & Jesus (Good Omens), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 57





	Then I Saw Him in the Crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheKnittingJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Bethlehem, A Starry Night, 1 BC](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21672823) by [TheKnittingJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi). 



> Happy birthday, gold-handed fairy! :)  
> This is a thing I've been working on for some months, since you posted your Christmas fic and inspired me to write it. I hope you like it, though perhaps it's not exactly what you're looking for...
> 
> Dear readers, heed the tags.  
> That said, if you think a change of rating or some extra tags are needed, please do tell me and I'll adjust them accordingly (I'm bad at tagging and all that stuff).
> 
> Enjoy the ride.

**London, today.**

They were watching a musical. A revival.

Crowley had been at the premiere of its first staging more than thirty years before; almost forty, actually. He’d been there, crying and letting himself be traumatised. It was possible that he had been the one who had secretly inspired the composer and the lyricist; but if that was the case, no one but him knew it.

He’d never watched _Jesus Christ Superstar_ again. This was his second time ever.

Aziraphale, who was there with him in the theatre, had been the one to suggest it among all possible plays and musicals and, of course, Crowley couldn’t deny him. (He could never deny him anything, bloody Heaven.) For the angel, that was just another pleasant evening at the theatre; for Crowley, it was another thing entirely.

It was painful, that’s what it was. Well, not artistically speaking, of course – the cast was freaking good, for a start. Nice modern-times staging and all. But the events were all too familiar to Crowley.

He’d tried to face his grief in secret, time after time, century after century. Hard as he’d tried, nothing had worked. Still, Crowley would methodically, periodically try again to face this loss that was gnawing at his chest, unbeknownst to Aziraphale, in the desperate hope that maybe this time it would be different, maybe he’d feel better. He’d tried not to think about it. He’d tried to talk about it to carefully selected people. He’d tried inspiring books, paintings, plays.

By then, he wasn’t sure anymore that facing the problem like that would have any effect as a cathartic method. On the contrary, it all but stirred painful memories even more inside his mind. And he’d tried plenty of different methods, in two millennia.

There had to be a solution. Something that would work.

They were around the middle of act one and things were getting progressively more and more unbearable.

_“I see bad things arising:  
the crowd crown him king, which the Romans would ban.  
I see blood and destruction,  
our elimination because of one man.  
Blood and destruction because of one man.”_

Crowley’s breath began to tremble. Blood and destruction, he’d seen them alright. All because of his friend.

_Don’t you dare fucking cry right now, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. This should be something private. You should heal, not put on a show._

He hadn’t expected to see any of the events that came after his death. What about what had followed in the two thousand years leading to the present days? Like the fucking Spanish Inquisition? Humans were so naïve to make fun of it in sketches and TV shows nowadays. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Yeah. He hadn’t expected it either.

But he remembered. He remembered the commendation he got out of that. A big one, too. Down in Hell, it had been a remarkable thing, that of the Spanish Inquisition. Basically as remarkable as when Dagon had inspired the _Malleus Maleficarum_ , or when Hastur had encouraged a whole recurring series of crusades.

The thing is, he didn’t even know what the fucking Spanish Inquisition was when his colleagues congratulated him for that. He had to make research about it, only to stop after a certain point, too revolted by the whole business to even try to make any sense of it.

Crowley had been disgusted enough by that commendation he received to throw the medal he got for it into a random public loo, flushing it without thinking twice and without looking back. He wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with those kinds of humans and their twisted minds. Innocent temptations here and there were a thing; he still had to look like he was doing his job, after all. When evil was managed entirely by humans, on the other hand… That’s when it gave its worst.

Sometimes, Crowley regretted having accepted to ‘go up there and make some trouble’ with his questions, back in the days of Adam and Eve. Experience taught him that knowledge actually causes trouble, from time to time. Perhaps none of this would have happened if he’d let the first humans blissfully unaware, inside their golden cage in a perfect garden.

He loved humanity. He was an optimist. He had watched his own Bentley combust and become a pile of sizzling junk to save that lonely planet and the strange creatures inhabiting it. But humans were also capable of unimaginable things. They committed atrocities and cruelties that often were a source of inspiration for the more sadistic and competent of his colleagues, when it should have been the other way around.

Caiaphas’s bass voice was booming again from the stage, taking wretched roots in Crowley’s mind, fizzling and wheezing like acid and toxic waste.

_“Fools! You have no perception –  
_ _the stakes we are gambling are frighteningly high.  
_ _We must crush him completely;  
_ _So, like John before him, this Jesus must die.  
_ _For the sake of the nation, this Jesus must die.”_

As he tried not to cry, he began to sweat instead.

He felt a soft hand on his own. The sudden contact made him realise just how tight he’d been gripping the armrest. “My dear, are you alright?”

“Am not”, he managed to blurt out of his dry throat.

The actors playing the high priests were moving slowly around the stage, following the choreography. In their black costumes, they looked like giant flies buzzing around an invisible corpse-to-be. They reminded Crowley of his own boss. He felt sick, his throat contracting as if urging him to throw up.

Aziraphale squeezed his hand. “Do you want us to leave?”

He didn’t know. Keeping his eyes glued to the stage, hypnotized by his own memories overlapping with the actors and sceneries, he felt Aziraphale’s worry beside him. _He doesn’t know_ , he remembered.

The high priests of the council were finishing their song, but Aziraphale didn’t take his hand away. He just laced their fingers together, stroking the back of Crowley’s hand with the thumb, feeling Crowley’s finger bones with care.

_“Must die, must die  
_ _This Jesus must – Jesus must – Jesus must die.”_

Crowley gulped. His mind was starting to spin into a maelstrom of muddy water. “Angel. Angel, take me away from here.”

They left.

\------------

**A recording studio in Soho, London, 1972.**

“Mmh, darling, are you sure about this chord?”

“Just go for it, Fred, trust me – it’s alright as it is.”

Sitting at the piano, Freddie Mercury toyed with the keys some more, apparently still unsure of the final outcome even after Crowley’s words. “I think it’s a little jagged. Unusual, to say the least.” He stayed pensive for maybe ten seconds, then he just shrugged. “But if it conveys what you have in mind… _You_ ’re the one who met him, love, I guess.”

“You bet I did.”

“Was your lovely friend, that angel you always talk about, a friend of his, too?”

Crowley, lying quite dramatically on a sofa in the dingy studio, shot him a brief glance form behind his sunglasses. “I think they were only acquaintances. But I really don’t know that. Our lot doesn’t get that much information from up above. But then again, I think that neither does he.”

“Mmh-mmh. Still, whether you both knew him or not, from what you tell me he must have been truly a nice man.”

They were alone. Since Crowley had casually heard Freddie sing along absentmindedly in a pub a couple of years before, he’d been fascinated by that voice. Feeling watched, Freddie had broken the ice with just a couple of words, and everything else had been easy from there. A great friendship was born.

Freddie had become well aware of Crowley’s true nature, and it was a mutual agreement that their bond had to remain a secret even to Freddie’s new band mates. It was for the best.

Now Freddie wasn’t looking at Crowley, all focussed on stroking the piano with his intuitive fingers. Crowley watched him and wished that talent, that ineffable thing, were something destined to ethereal and occult beings as well, instead of being a human peculiarity, one of those gifts that were mortals’ and mortal’s alone. _And he can’t even read music_.

Crowley could do many things that defied both the laws of physics She had written with Her metaphysical hand and the reality that he, himself, had helped Her shape before the beginning. He could bend the matter to a certain extent, could will objects and machineries into working using only his own imagination; he could shape-shift into a snake, he could summon hellfire and he was, most probably, the best tempter in his area of expertise. But painting, writing, acting, playing, composing, sculpting, sewing, cooking – all of those abilities and many more were exquisitely human, were created by them for their own enjoyment. Nor angels nor demons had any inner talent for those.

_If I were human, if I had any talent, perhaps I could have already explained to the world how I miss him in a million different ways; and perhaps all this sorrow would hurt a little less._

He didn’t reveal his demonic nature to humans, usually; the sunglasses made it easier to keep it hidden. In fact, he hadn’t revealed his identity to Freddie, either – he’d just guessed it.

They were two akin minds that understood each other and enjoyed harbouring feelings and storing them away, to taste them later as they grew older like good wine.

Little by little, in his journey through the centuries, Crowley had found that friendships demands to be hoarded.

Crowley had had many human friends all along those two millennia; and to each and every one of them he’d tried to explain what that loss had meant and still meant to him. _As humans_ , he had thought, _they’ll understand better what it’s like to grieve like I am grieving_.

“He wasn’t just nice. I think he was probably the best,” Crowley said.

“Yes, that’s what they say.”

Here was the thing: every time he’d tried to explain humans how he felt, he’d only received answers like that.

Grief, Crowley realised, is understood only when shared, or when you find someone who has been there before you.

Crowley felt Freddie’s soul near, felt him try to grasp the concept of a friend gone but not forgotten for two whole millennia; but looking into his eyes, Crowley saw him making an effort that Freddie was probably considering to be useless, like trying to grasp and hold the flick of a flame with bare hands.

“I’ll do what I can, darling,” Freddie said, once again replaying on the piano that song, one of their very first collaborations.

_This is the last time I’ve tried to explain the shit I’ve been through to any human_ , Crowley decided. _I see now that they’d never fully understand._

“If that’s ok with you, I think we should simply call it _Jesus_ ,” Crowley said.

\--------------

**London, today.**

Aziraphale refused to let Crowley drive; instead, he called a cab for the both of them. All the way to Crowley’s Mayfair apartment, Aziraphale never let go of his hand.

While they were in the cab, Crowley leaned his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. He stared at the road unravelling right in front of him, a straight merry-go-round of light and dark, light and dark, outside of the car window.

He started to cry silently behind his sunglasses, so useless in the evening, and he cursed himself for doing it. _Don’t. Don’t – Stay composed and collected just a little longer_ , he thought, _and then you can really let the waters break the dam. You’ve managed almost two thousand years, what could fifteen minutes more be?_ For some reason that he couldn’t figure out, he only hoped Aziraphale wouldn’t catch him crying before they were inside.

The cab left them in front of Crowley's flat.

Too exhausted to walk, Crowley let himself be guided gently through the door, his arm slouched over Aziraphale’s shoulders.

There was his usual sofa there, just in front of the entrance. It had never been used, but now Crowley let gravity pull him down to those soft grey cushions for the first time. Aziraphale followed suit, sitting down next to his head.

“Crowley,” he said. “Crowley, love…”

Crowley slid closer, resting his head on Aziraphale’s thighs, facing the wall. He stayed like that for some time, just staring at the wall, as a gentle hand tried to make sense of his dishevelled hair. It had grown so long after the Averted Apocalypse…

As Aziraphale’s fingers combed and combed, untying the knots in his locks, another kind of knot went loose in Crowley’s throat. He started to cry and, this time, he was not going to stop.

He lifted a hand, tore his sunglasses away and tossed them on the floor, curling up and grabbing a handful of Aziraphale’s trousers, holding onto them as if he were scared of falling.

Aziraphale let him do that without asking questions, without even saying a word. He just kept carding his fingers through his hair in silence, keeping his breath even.

Encouraged by this unquestioning quietness, Crowley kept crying. He felt two thousand years of loss and grief and anger as they punched and punched and punched his stomach, mercilessly helping him pour everything out. He had finally reached his breaking point, and he found a miserable sense of relief in realising it.

Crowley cried so hard and so long that he felt a headache creeping in with smoke-grey tendrils. Aziraphale’s trousers were now stained and bawled upon beyond remedy, mussed up and almost out of shape from the constant grabbing.

Crowley gasped for air. He felt like he’d drained all the water that could possibly be stored in his corporation. He opened his eyes, his vision unclear, unsure of the amount of time that had passed.

“My dear,” a voice as warm as a woollen sweater reached his ear from above. “My dear, would you like a glass of water?”

Crowley nodded.

He felt a snap, the movement of air as a glass of water materialized in Aziraphale’s hand, and another gentle hand lifting his head in encouragement.

“Drink, dear. Sip slowly.”

Crowley did.

He still couldn’t look at Aziraphale. But his presence under him, above him, his nursing touch, was what he needed. Aziraphale’s care was perhaps the last thing he was left with to try.

“How do you feel?”

Crowley sighed. “I think... I just...” He stayed silent for some time, trying to ease his breath into a nice pattern of slow, calculated in-and-outs.

“I’m here,” Aziraphale said. He didn’t move.

“I have so many things to tell you,” Crowley told him eventually. He hid his face in Aziraphale’s thigh, pressing his closed eyes in the soft fabric. “Wish I had done this sooner.”

“I noticed you’ve been distressed for some time, lately,” Aziraphale acknowledged, his voice a flutter of cotton candy.

Crowley gave a tired smile. _Of course you noticed. You are smart. So fucking smart and compassionate_. He hoped he’d not made a fool of himself; but a little flower made of gratitude was blooming inside him at the thought that Aziraphale knew and had waited for the right moment, had not pressured him into anything. _How patient can you be for my sake?_

Aziraphale spoke again. “Do you want to tell me what’s been on your mind? That is,” he cleared his throat, “if it can make you feel any better.”

Crowley thought of the memories crowding his mind, ineffable traces of pain that still lingered on like burnt-out ashes in a fireplace that, despite everything, were always ready to take fire again.

He thought about it. He really needed to pour the whole story out like he’d done with his tears. It was high time.

\------------------

_And then I saw him in the crowd  
A lot of people had gathered round him  
The beggars shouted, the lepers called him  
The old man said nothing  
He just stared about him  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down…_

**Intermission I  
**AND THEY'LL HURT YOU WHEN THEY FIND THEY’RE WRONG

When he learned about the Spanish inquisition, Crowley had to go check in person. He just _had_ to. He had to know what the Heaven his lot was commending him for. He had to know what horrors humans had come up with and were committing in his friend's name - in Jesus's name, he who had been the kindest, the meekest of all. They had turned all the love he'd tried to preach into hatred. They had invented torments and tortures to make people lie about themselves. They were still able to sleep at all at night.

Sometimes humanity baffled Crowley, leaving him speechless in the worst way possible.

\------------------

**Bethlehem, 0 A.D.**

“Angel – angel, have you heard…?”

“…Yes. I did.”

“What in Hell’s name is going on? What is this- this madness? Is it happening again?”

“I’m… I’m afraid so.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, and Crawly felt her jaw drop. It was windy, that night, and her hair danced around her head like dark red whips.

“You mean- After the Great Flood back in Noah’s times, now…? Angel, almost two thousands years have passed, I can’t, I can’t possibly believe that She – Is this… Is this something your lot has been scheming and plotting all along?”

“Crawly. _She_ does not have anything to do with… with this folly. It’s all Herod’s doing.”

“Oh. Oh, _of course_. And how can you be so sure?”

“I haven’t received… _instructions_ … about this from my side. They are in the dark as much as we’ve been until now. We’ve only known that Herod’s become a little paranoid lately. Well,” Aziraphale amended, twisting his mouth, having seen how Crawly’s eyes had reacted to his words, “definitely way more than a little paranoid.”

“So it’s just, what – a crazy human king who’s decided to… to do what? To murder all of Bethlehem’s children…”

“I know, my dear-”

“The _babies_ , Aziraphale – the babies, up to two years old!”

Crawly covered her eyes, digging the heels of her hands in, overwhelmed even by the fact of having to put that concept into words. She could picture everything already. How the soldiers would be forced to pick up their swords, and spears, and daggers, and raise them, and-

She felt anger and horror drag her by the hair into a pit of helplessness. “He isn’t even sure when Jesus was born-”

“I _know_ , Crowley!” Aziraphale was shouting, now. Crawly lifted her head to look at him. She had never seen him react like that. Not even during the Great Flood. “I know! What would you have me do? You know I can’t do anything-”

“Bullshit!” She started pressing her hands to her eyes again. “You _can_ \- you can do some bloody _miracle_ , for fuck’s sake, you’re an angel – I don’t know… just… take them all away. Take them to a safe place. Please…”

“Crawly. Crawly, look at me.”

Aziraphale took Crawly’s hands away from her eyes. He searched inside the demon’s slit pupils. Crawly knew what the angel would find. Confusion. Panic. Rage. Fear. Questions. She wished she had a way to hide them all, a mean to cover herself and take shelter from the exposing light. She hated having eyes so naked that they were like an open book to him.

Aziraphale’s voice was low again now. “My dear. You know that I can’t. I can’t do it. It would be too big a miracle, too obvious, and I have received no instruction about this…”

“Fuck instructions!” Crawly wailed. Overwhelmed, she fell to her knees.

“Besides…” Aziraphale tried again after a pause. His voice was very close, and she figured he had knelt down too; but the angel didn’t say anything more after that last word.

They were both crying now, for some stupid reason – the angel and the demon, two opposite sides, united in their tears. There was something bigger than them in the air. The ineffability of God’s plan fell upon them like an axe. Without even realising what they were doing, they hugged each other, trying to keep their pieces together.

“It’s happening also because of the free will business, isn’t it?” Crawly said with a voice coming from somewhere beyond the underworld, hollow and shaking like it was made of glass.

“Yes”, Aziraphale said, holding her a little tighter. “I think so.”

\----------------

**Nazareth, 10 A.D.**

Crawly let herself smile before entering the house.

She’d come to visit him for the first time after the end of Herod’s reign. She had wanted to do that for some time, and she’d finally had the chance.

Finding their home had been easy; everyone in the village knew Joseph, the carpenter, and they were more than willing to tell her which way to go.

She found Mary standing by the kitchen table, kneading some dough to make bread.

In time, Crawly had come to recognize what bread and its dough looked like. Aziraphale had discovered it just some centuries before and he’d gone completely out of his mind for such an apparently simple food, so much that, on the rare occasions they happened to meet, it was not unusual for the angel to talk about it or to be eating it.

From the sounds Crawly heard, Jesus was playing in the quiet and sheltered street behind the house, carefree and happy, unaware of her demonic presence.

Ten whole years had passed since the boy’s birth. Mary had become a full woman by then, and she smiled without fear when she met Crawly’s gaze in her tiny kitchen. Oddly enough, she had never been surprised by Crawly’s eyes from the start, when the demon had shown up to help her during childbirth with Aziraphale in tow. It was almost as if Mary could always see right through her; but then again, Crawly was starting to realise, little by little, that humans knew a lot more things than she’d ever suspected.

Mary stopped kneading for a moment to tuck a stray lock of dark, straight hair behind her ear. “Oh! Please, do come in. Joseph is still working, though, if you were looking for him.”

_She remembers me_ , Crawly thought. “Actually, I was just… travelling around here – I, uh, I travel a lot, you know – and since I was already here in Nazareth, I thought I’d pop in to see how your son was doing after all these years.” She gulped. “He’s all grown up, eh?”, she said then, as if she’d never expected a human child to actually grow considerably in ten years. She glanced out of the window to the street where Jesus was playing, then she took a seat on a stool next to Mary, who didn’t flinch. Yup, she was definitely not scared.

“Oh, he is. He’s ten.”

“What’s his name again? I’m afraid I can’t remember clearly, you know. After all this time…”

That was a half-truth. Some things Crawly remembered very well – the excitement of implanting her first star, her first nebula, her first planet into the velvet of the Universe; the shadow of an outstretched angelic wing, providing shelter from the rain at the beginning of time; the limb-ripping feeling of witnessing all those creatures, great and small, but children especially, perish in the Great Flood… Yes, there were things that Crowley remembered very, _very_ well.

“His name is Jesus.” Mary, too, looked out of the window, now.

“What about, uh, Emmanuel? A… friend of mine heard it said that it was the name he was supposed to have.”

“Who said that?”

“I told you – a friend. You’ve met him. He’s the one who- uhm, who had booked all the rooms in Bethlehem when you-”

“No, I mean, who said it before him? Some sort of prophet, I think?”

Crawly twisted her mouth, but didn’t answer. Prophets were a strange lot. The heart of each and every one of them was in the right place. Not all of them had their minds in the right place, though.

“Some people have said that my son will be a great prophet, too,” Mary went on. She laughed in a strange, sweet, tight-lipped way, exhaling from her nose – a laugh which Crawly suspected was one of her distinctive traits, like she was always trying to trap it behind her teeth; like it was never the right time for that laugh to fly out freely. “Actually, I don’t think that my son could be a prophet, exactly. But… well. He’s special in his own way. I have a feeling… a good feeling about him. Call it mother’s intuition, but I’m sure he’ll do wonders.” She covered the dough with a cloth. “Come, my friend.”

Crawly arched her eyebrows. It felt strange, being called ‘friend’ by a human.

There was something about Mary, something that made her look like she was always doing the right thing, as if she had the perfect words, the best intentions, the correct actions. And yet, she was but a young human.

They went out the back door to the street at the back of the house, where the child had been playing. He was currently crouched on the ground, watching some ants as they frantically walked in line, coming and going, unaware of the giant that loomed over them.

“Jesus, come here”, his mother called him. “Come say hello to our friend.”

He raised his head, taking both of them in with his big eyes, and then he smiled. Crawley was sure she’d never forget a smile as earnest as that.

She’d always been good with kids. Though she loved humanity on the whole, with all their faults and quirkiness, she found talking to children easier and more engaging than having some long conversation with their adult counterparts. Those little ones had imagination galore, and Crawly, a former ethereal being who had created the concept of ‘stars’, felt a strong connection to their everyday use of fantasy.

Jesus came closer and Crawly, who was very tall, sat on the ground to be more or less at eye level with him.

_Not the kids. You can’t kill kids_ , said her own voice in a distant memory, when a Great Flood had wiped that part of the Earth. She remembered Aziraphale’s tight-lipped nod; she remembered him as he, too, lost his cool when they had learnt of Herod’s plan to kill all the newborns. The lives of all those children seemed to flutter inside Jesus’s eyes, a parade lasting only a glimpse.

“Hello, love. My name is Crawly.” She wished she could share with him what was on her mind in that moment, but he was still too young.

“I’m Jesus,” he said. Then, out of the blue, “Are you one of Mother’s friends who were there when I was born?”

“I told him many times,” Mary butted in, leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back. “He likes hearing that story.”

“Well, young man,” Crawly said, “as a matter of fact, yes, I am. I was there with your Mom when you were so small you could fit in a basket.”

“Mother always says all sorts of good things about you. She says you had some trouble because you didn’t know what to do, but you helped me and her all the same.”

Crawly scratched the back of her neck. “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly an expert on how babies are born, but... I did my best, sure.” She saw Mary nodding slowly and calmly out of the corner of her eye.

“Are you two engaged?” Jesus went on, with the typical curiosity of children.

Crawly arched an eyebrow. “Who?”

“You and the other one of Mother’s friends. The one all dressed in white.”

“Oh. _Him_.” Of course Mary had told Jesus about Aziraphale, too. He’d been there as well. Crawly opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with something, anything to say; but words were nowhere to be found.

“Now, now, Jesus,” Mary came to her aid, scolding her son lightly, without losing her playful smile and winking at Crawly. “One shouldn’t ask this kind of questions.”

Crawly cleared her throat. “We’re, uh. We’re just good acquaintances, I’d say.” … _Are we?_

“I hope he pays us a visit too, in the future. I’d like to meet him,” Jesus said.

“I hope so, too,” said Mary, looking at Crawly. “I remember he was a little bashful, but so very polite. A literal angel, if you know what I mean.”

Crawly forced out a laugh which, she hoped, sounded natural enough. “Yes, I think I know very well.”

“Do you think he’ll happen to pass by, sometime in the future? Are you two still in touch?”

“Don’t know, I’m afraid. I haven’t heard from him for all these last ten years, and he’s quite a traveller like me.” _One day, perhaps, our paths will cross again._

“That’s a pity. Well, then. You, at least, can come visit us anytime. It will be a pleasure to have you as guest.”

Crawly smiled at her. _Is this what it’s like for humans, to have a friend?_

A small hand, eager but polite, tugged at the sleeve of her black dress. “Miss Crawly, would you play hide and seek with me?”

“Sure, young man. But I warn you – I may be tall and old, but I still know a trick or two about hiding and disguises.”

She was in for an extraordinary day of fun and games. She started playing hide-and-seek with Jesus. Then Joseph came back from work, and they all convinced her to stay for lunch. Then Jesus took her for a tour of the village in the blazing afternoon sun, and before they knew it, it was dinner time, and Crawly was persuaded to eat with them once again and to stay the night before leaving the next morning.

She went to perform her next temptation with a lighter heart. The thought that she could return to visit that home anytime, like a desert traveller always stops by an oasis, doubled her newfound joy.

And come back many times she did, all through Jesus’s teenage years and Mary’s adulthood, until one day Joseph died of old age peacefully in his bed.

\--------------

**Somewhere in the desert outside of Jerusalem, 30 A.D.**

“Thank someone! Here you are,” Crawly said, and then she stopped walking. The warm, shifting desert sand under her bare feet was not comforting her like it usually did.

Sitting on the ground by what appeared to be a tiny, lonely oasis, Jesus raised his head and smiled up at her with meek eyes. Crawly held back a wince.

Her friend had the face of a man who hadn’t eaten properly lately, or hadn’t eaten anything at all for some time.

“Jesus, for the love of... of someone”, Crawly started rambling, “what- what happened to you? What are you doing here all alone in the desert? You’re not hurt, I hope? Why are you- Wait, are you- have you been _fasting_?”

“Yes”, Jesus whispered more than said, his face the portrait of tranquillity, his usual, inexplicable smile not flickering in the least.

Crawly had already seen men and women fast in the desert. It was almost a common sight during her travels and her coming-and-going through those lands. But she’d never pictured Jesus, of all people, fasting. The thought didn’t seem too strange, in retrospect; it was just one of those events that don’t cross your mind until one of your loved ones is right in the middle of it.

Crawly didn’t eat frequently. As a demon, she didn’t feel the need to, but she knew from second hand – from Aziraphale, mainly – how joyous and natural the act of eating could be. Something to be done together. An act of communion with your loved ones. From what she knew, Jesus had never fasted outside of the times his religion required. He was observant, but he wasn’t unreasonable. He hadn’t been until he’d disappeared from Jerusalem and all the nearby villages. He used to say he was bound to be a traveller, a nomad like Crawly, but she’d never taken him seriously about that. Until now.

“You’re weak”, remarked Crawly, trying to hide her concern. “You shouldn’t have done this, especially without warning anyone. How long have you been here?”

“Forty days.”

“Forty days! Forty days without eating regularly!” Forty days without talking to anybody. Forty days of solitude. Forty days less to his human life. And he’d spent them _there_. “How are you even still alive?”

“I felt the need to do that.” Jesus sighed and looked away, his smile changing its flavour. “I wanted to stay away from everything that could distract me. I want to be ready for what I’m about to do.”

Crawly, whose eyes were constantly wide open and alert, full of life, blinked many times. She wanted to ask him so many questions, but not one came out of her mouth.

“You can’t go on like this”, she said eventually. “You’re starving yourself for- for what? Some kind of meditation?”

“It’s complicated,” Jesus said. He turned his face to Crawly very slowly, and his prominent cheekbones cut deep into Crawly’s heart like two knives. He really had become so thin. What for? “I find that I can think more clearly when I have no ties to the material world.”

“Enough with all of this. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re not making any sense. You have to eat. Please.” Crawly looked around, scanning the small patch of landscape with her reptilian eyes, trying to find something to offer him in that brutal land. She would have miracled some food for him, but for some reason the thought seemed odd. She felt she could have done it in secret, far from mortal eyes; but doing it so blatantly in front of a human felt out of place, as if she were about to strip down in front of him. _After all these years of visits and chats, maybe he knows who I am –_ what _I am; and yet…_

“Please”, Crawly said again, filling Jesus’s silence with the sound of her voice. “I’m- I’m worried about you, Jesus. You go around, you disappear without notice, and we’re supposed to go to that wedding next month, at Cana, remember?… And I find you here, outside of Jerusalem. You didn’t even tell your mother! She was scared more than I’ve ever seen her. When I came to visit and you weren’t there, she sent me looking for you. You should have seen how worried she was about you, after that time when you up and stayed behind in the Temple without telling anyone, remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Took your poor parents three days to track you down, and you were but a boy. What I mean is, I see the spirit of rebellion in you, and- and I admire you for that more than anyone could, believe me. I think you know why – and who I am”, she added, lowering her voice. “But please. Be more careful. Be kinder to yourself.”

Jesus said nothing. He just looked at her, serene and unperturbed, listening.

“You… please. Just. Eat something. I’d rather you ate these rocks than to watch you starve.” She kneeled before him, at his eye level, and she made eye contact, as painful as it was.

Jesus held her gaze. Then, finally, he spoke. “The fact that I’m fasting doesn’t mean that I won’t eat anymore.” He sighed, then shifted his gaze to the tiny pool of water nearby surrounded by rocks. “I was planning to make it last a few other days. Not longer.”

Crawly was on the edge of desperation. She didn’t want to scare him with her powers, but she’d be forced to use them if he kept being silent like this. Where was Aziraphale when she needed him? He’d always been a thousand times better at providing comfort and reassurance. He could will people into taking care of themselves, and he did it just by showing that he cared. Crawly would try to show how much she cared, too, being a very unusual demon; but the angel always made it look so natural… “At least do it for your us. For your mother and me.” She thought of Mary, of her young wisdom, of her delicate hands kneading the dough, making bread – something that her son seemed to reject, now, only for what looked like a stupid matter of principle.

There was silence again in the oasis. If Crawly hadn’t been so close to him, hadn’t heard him breathe, she could have sworn he’d have died on the spot, leaving its hollow shell of a body behind him in that exact position.

Then Jesus nodded.

“I have spent enough time here,” he declared. He spoke very slowly, but luckily he didn’t seem to have trouble breathing. “You’re right. It is time to go back home. Mother and I are invited to that wedding. It would be rude if we didn’t go.” He smiled. “I admit I’m not sure how we’re related to those people, but… it’s a good reason as any to be merry, right? And you’ll be there, too.”

Crawly let out a sigh, her mouth breaking into a beaming smile of relief that matched the light in her own golden eyes.

Standing up, without thinking too much about it, she held out a hand. Jesus returned her smile, he took her hand and heaved himself to his feet.

\----------

“Back in ol’ Jerusalem, then”, Crawly remarked, and Jesus nodded.

The road back had been longer than expected; at least it seemed like that, after those moments in the desert. But with Jesus so weak, they had taken it very slow.

They were eating bread, sitting in the shade outside of the Temple, a quiet place where they were sure nobody could disturb them. The complex of buildings, in its vastness and magnificence, was spread out behind the walls against their shoulders.

Jesus, still weak, took his time to savour that humble first meal. He was eating the bread in small chunks, chewing them slowly, sipping fresh water from time to time from a small leather flask Crawly had taken with her when she’d come looking for him in the desert.

“Thank you for what you’ve done. I think that the heat had started to go to my head.” Jesus laughed quietly as he handed back to Crowley her flask.

“Don’t say that, you have no reason to thank me.”

“Why not? Two or three days more, and who can say what would have been of me. I’ve been too stubborn, perhaps. I took myself too seriously. I can only thank you for changing my mind.”

“Please, stop _thanking_ me. It’s making me nervous. I didn’t do anything special.”

Jesus put the piece of bread he was eating down on his lap. “Crawly. Don’t try to pretend it was no big deal, don’t do this.” His hand came up to squeeze her thin shoulder, and Crawly, though a little ashamed, let him do that. “I think you know, by now, that I am perfectly aware of who you are.”

_‘Who you are’, he’s said. Not ‘what’. ‘Who’._ She sucked a breath.

“And you’re not scared”, Crawly said. It didn’t sound like a question, but it was.

“I wouldn’t be talking to you, otherwise.”

“Mmh. I guess.”

She pursed her lips. She’d never been great at receiving compliments and gentle words. She wasn’t used to that. Even when Aziraphale casually mentioned how kind or nice she was, she’d always snap. _I’m a demon. I’m not nice. I’m not kind._ Still, not wanting to puzzle her human friend with her problems, she dropped the subject.

_My human friend._

The wonder of that concept made her a little dizzy. Like the both of them had been… flying too high.

“It would be a pity,” she said with careful slowness, “if we didn’t get to enjoy the view of the city from the top of the Temple on this beautiful day.”

Jesus laughed. “Crawly. It’s impossible to get up there. I think it’s forbidden or something… It _will_ be a pity, my friend.”

Crawly felt the air leave her lungs for a good ten seconds. She would never get used to be called ‘friend’, as pleasant and sweet as it was. “What if it weren’t impossible for _me_?”

Jesus, who had come back to eat his bread, put it down once more.

She stood up. “Give me that piece of bread. You’ll finish eating it later.”

Jesus obeyed, without saying a word. _He’s so trusting…_

Then, acting before she could regret it, she opened her black wings. Jesus looked at them with the interest of a scholar, not flinching in the least. _He really knew I am not human, then. I wonder if Mary knew, too._

“Allow me,” she said, and she scooped him up gently in her arms.

“Whoa!” he laughed. “Am I not too heavy?” He put his arms around her neck to steady himself.

“Not at all,” she smirked. “A feather.”

Summoning her demonic powers to keep holding Jesus without effort, she flapped her wings and took flight. The sudden gust of air made their long hair flutter around, dark and ruby flowing in every direction.

Crawly heard Jesus exhale in surprise, and a quick look at his face reassured her. Cradled in her arms, he was looking around, like he wanted to see everything and feared he had no time to do that.

“Be patient,” she said, “we’re almost there.”

After a minute, she landed gracefully on the top balcony of the highest spire of the Temple.

Jesus climbed down, his feet a little unsteady. Then, after he found his balance, he looked at the view, leaning against the balcony rail. Crawly followed him.

The gardens, the fountains, stairs and walls and windows, golden touches all around… Everything was there under their eyes. They were so high that looking down to the earth below almost felt like a challenge in itself. A light breeze blew, making the air a little chilly.

She handed him the bread again. “Your snack.”

“Thank you.” Jesus took it.

Crawly sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I wish you stopped thanking me.”

“I won’t.” He smiled as he chew. “I feel like a child. Having to be taken care of like this.” He sighed wistfully, still staring at all the beautiful things the Temple had on display for the two of them. “Not a great start, for someone who wants to be a preacher, uh? Not very wise or responsible.”

“A preacher?”

“Yes. I’m thinking of following my cousin’s steps, you know? John is quite good, perhaps you’ve seen him going from town to town… when he doesn’t live in the desert. Maybe his style is a little too rough, though. I’m thinking of trying a softer approach…”

He stopped. Crawly had been silent for some time.

She felt his eyes on her, and her fingers twitched out of nervousness. “How did you know that I wouldn’t let you fall? When we were flying?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just felt safe, I guess.”

_Safe… with a demon?_ Crawly frowned, then she shook her head. _I would never let you fall._ _I would never let your foot hit even a single rock. A demon doesn’t get to have many friends. Human ones feel even rarer._

Her reasoning became unbearable, until it asked to be let out into the world. “The thought that you’re friends with someone like _me_ …” Crawly wrung her fingers, tangling and disentangling them, until Jesus’s hand came to cover them. Crawly stilled.

“You’re different from the others like you,” he said simply.

She frowned again. “How?”

“Well, I can’t be sure, but I bet that you’re different in many ways. Perhaps even those wings of yours are different.” He couldn’t see them anymore, but Crawly noticed he still tried to follow their invisible outline with his eyes, to remember how they were. “They’re black. They suit you, of course.”

“I have my style.”

They both smirked. Then, raising an eyebrow and smiling in a knowing way, Jesus went on, “You could even consider changing your name to… Crowley or something like that, don’t you think? Wings as black as a crow’s.”

Crawly snorted, making no comment on that. _‘Crowley’, eh…_

She leaned back completely, slumping slightly against the outer wall. Soon, perhaps in a couple of months, she would have to leave. Hell hadn’t assigned her anything for a while – it was only natural that they would strive to keep her busy, since she was their agent on Earth on a permanent basis. They’d find something for her to do.

_We’ll have to go separate ways again._ _I’ll go everywhere and anywhere. Who knows where they’ll send me, the things I’ll see. But he… he will have to stay here..._

“I’d like to show you something else,” Crawly said. “But you have to be well rested and fed. Let’s wait, say, a couple of weeks – will it be enough for you? – Well, I _hope_ it will be enough.” She looked deep into his eyes, demon to human, and she didn’t blink. “But you have to promise me that you will _not_ do that again.”

“I promise,” Jesus said.

\--------------

They had climbed a small mountain, getting on top of it as quickly as they could to be able to get back to town before dusk. The sun was blazing, like a plate of white gold in the sky.

“Look how far the eye can go from up here”, Crawly said with genuine awe above the voice of the wind.

_This puny planet, this little grain of sand in the desert of Space and Time, is_ really _worth something._

“Yes”, Jesus said, his face serene, “it is really something incredible, the world. Don’t you think?”

Crawly turned towards him, delighted at this thought connection like a child in front of a new discovery to explore. “I have travelled far and wide. I have seen all the lands, all the nations of the world. My… my friend, I wish you could _see_ …” She trailed off.

Jesus looked at her in silence, waiting.

Crawly heard the friendship between them hum, she heard it play unspoken and silent melodies in the air, on the wind.

“That’s why I wanted you to come here today,” she said eventually. “I can show you.”

Jesus arched his eyebrows, amused. “Show me what?”

“Everything else. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve touched, the sounds I heard.” She cleared her throat. “As a… as a gift.”

“You mean… the world?”

“I mean the world,” Crawly nodded. She would never forget the smile she found on Jesus’s face when he heard that answer. “Hold my hand,” she said. Jesus took it.

With a gesture of her free hand, there at the top of that mountain, Crawly summoned the vastness of space and the lengths of the Universe on the plain below, in front of them. There were fixed and moving stars, the sizzling firmament in constant expansion, planets dancing at their own pace, greedy black holes and generous white ones. The faint echo and humming buzz of matter walking towards its full expansion surrounded them before falling silent.

Crawley didn’t need to look at her friend to feel his happiness, the wonder budding in his soul, taking roots in his human body and becoming real with that gentle squeeze of his hand joined to hers.

Her golden eyes blinked once. That beautiful cosmic chaos started to twirl and reorganize itself, faster and faster, and a ribbon of pictures passed in front of their eyes. Gorgeous temples, intricate rituals, complex languages, faraway animals and plants, skin tones and clothes and fashions and hairdos and delicate ways to forge jewellery. Habits and customs, way to conduct business, parties and festivities, food and drinks, beds and houses, villages and huts, ways to love and ways to live, kingdoms and realms.

Life.

“The world _is_ beautiful”, Jesus commented, still taking it all in. He was breathless.

Crawly nodded. “Sometimes I feel like- like all the places I see, all the things I get to know… It’s like owning them, in a way. It’s a good feeling. At least to me.”

“I don’t know,” Jesus said, after a couple of seconds of silence. “Personally, I’d say that I simply like to live here, in this land, being aware that all of these beautiful things coexist with me. I’m so glad I’m alive. The concept of… _owning_ them doesn’t interest me.”

“Not even owning something like knowledge?”

“Not even owning knowledge. I have some of it at my disposal, I guess, and I build it up with my experiences. But I don’t own it. It’s an ever-changing thing – it grows and changes with us, don’t you think?”

“It’s an interesting take,” Crawly conceded, and the back of her mind stored this opinion to discuss it with Aziraphale, when the two of them would meet again.

They watched as the vision slowly became dust and air, wind and earth, until it disappeared.

\----------

_Then came a man, before his feet he fell  
“Unclean”, said the leper, and rang his bell  
Felt the palm of a hand touch his head  
“Go now, go now – you're a new man!”, instead  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down…_

**Intermission II  
**AND THEY'LL HURT YOU WHEN THEY THINK YOU’VE LIED

How would you feel if half the people in the world always carried a small charm depicting your dying friend? What if people started worshipping him and hanging it on walls and over doorframes, and then proceeded to carefully ignore the love he taught to have for each other, sometimes even doing the very opposite – spreading hatred and bigotry and arrogance?

That’s what Crowley felt every time he looked at a cross.

\----------

**Cana, 30 A.D.**

In all that chaos – servants coming and going with those enormous water jugs, people shouting and laughing, the bride entertaining her guests while she waited patiently for the groom to come back from the master of ceremonies’ room –, Crowley sipped from her cup of water. It tasted like wine.

She blinked. That was strange. They had been out of wine for a whole day, and everyone at the wedding had been lamenting its lack behind their back. “Without wine, they’re going to end the party any moment now,” they whispered. Still, the happy mood seemed to linger on, but it was slowly burning out, and the wedding threatened to last way less than everyone had expected.

She frowned and she sipped again. That water tasted _too much_ like wine. She smelled it, looked at it. It _was_ wine.

Her mouth fell open.

“Jesus, this… this is _wine_.”

Her friend, sitting at her right, smiled at her. “Oh, you noticed it, too, then! Yes, _great_ wine. Much better than the one they served initially, don’t you think?”

Crawly sipped again. Wine. Wine instead of water.

Why wasn’t he surprised? Was he expecting something like that? Did he… _do_ that? Had he just turned the water into wine to let the party go on some more? That was the kind of stuff that her colleagues would do to tempt humans. Or that Aziraphale would do, in extreme circumstances, since he was more likely to materialize food and drinks for the poor. Not that Crawly acted differently; but she had to do it in secret, behind the other demons’ backs to keep up appearances.

“What a lucky coincidence that the groom remembered he’d had his good wine stored away,” Jesus commented, and he winked, playfully clinking his cup to Crawly’s.

Crawly felt vaguely offended, like someone had robbed her of her otherworldly powers. But then again, it wasn’t certain. Had it really been Jesus?

“Three cheers for the happy couple,” Mary said, standing up from where she had been sitting, at the right of her son, and raising her cup.

Crawly toasted together with the other guests. She drank in silence. Suddenly, everything seemed to be dyed with uncertainty.

**\----------------**

**Bethany, 33 A.D.**

Sometimes Crowley wondered if Jesus was actually on their side. _Hell's_ side, that is. Crawly preferred not to count herself in, if she could.

Multiplying fish and bread? Turning water into wine? If what people said about him was true, those were things _she_ could and would do. Simple things that could lead into temptation but that could also be switched and mistaken for… _nice_ things. Miracles, someone could have said.

After all, it was all in the recipient, sometimes. It's one thing giving a loaf of bread to a beggar, and it's another one giving it to a rich man who would throw it away after one bite. The bread is bread; people are not always the same.

Because of this, sometimes she thought that she could even perform miracles instead of Aziraphale. And who knew if he could do the same for temptations?

But that day at Lazarus's funeral…

She'd come late (she would always come too late, damn it), and she'd seen him – Lazarus, the dead – at least he’d _been_ dead until moments before – while some people unwrapped him and helped him out of his shroud, still a little shaken and confused, yes, but definitely alive.

And Jesus… Jesus was crying. But he was also smiling in a way Crawly had never seen him do. His face was radiating joy through the tears.

Crawly knew that Lazarus had been one of Jesus's closest friends, and she had come there to mourn together with him as soon as she’d heard the news; she'd had a little trouble explaining to her boss why in Hell’s name he wanted to go there in the first place; but eventually she'd made it, and now she was by Jesus’s side. 

Yet, she had discovered in surprise, there was no cause for mourning, apparently. Only for amazement and unexpected joy.

That's when Crawly thought Jesus _couldn't be_ on Hell's side, after all. Perhaps he wasn't even on Heaven's side (that thought had crossed her mind, too). Resurrecting the dead was something too powerful and complex. No angel or demon could ever do anything like that. But according to those humans who were there with him that day, just before Crawly arrived, that was exactly what had happened.

_Could it be that they had buried this man_ alive _?_ Crawly frowned, torn between smiling with Jesus, partaking in his joy, and disappearing without making a sound, slithering away to process what had happened in silence. _They_ did _say he’d already started smelling bad, though. Four days since he’d died, apparently…_

She decided to stay, for the moment, and she smiled back at her friend. If only Aziraphale had been there to reason with her. Maybe his side was more aware of what the Heaven was going on. But at this point, having seen no trace of him for thirty-three years, she doubted it.

_Who are you?_ she caught herself wondering, looking at Jesus. Questioning everything had always been her specialty, after all.

That afternoon, Crawly decided that it made no sense placing Jesus on either side. Jesus was Jesus, and that was that. More importantly, he was her friend.

\--------

**Mount Golgotha, 33 A.D.**

So many times she'd stumbled upon him in her travels to and fro.

She'd seen him as a baby, as a child, as a young man.

She’d always come too late to witness whatever he was up to, to check whether it had happened for real. Once again, she found herself in front of her dilemma.

_Who are you?_

People said he could walk on water and heal the lepers and give sight to the blind. They always said that he could multiply fish and bread, that he had power over demons and willed them to go away.

Was he a demon like her? It couldn’t be. She hadn’t known him before the Fall. And for the same reason, he couldn’t even be an angel.

Nothing made sense. She and Aziraphale had both been there with Jesus’s parents when he was born, had offered all the little help they could. He was _born_. He was a human. Yet, all those people who had followed him had claimed to have seen him perform supernatural acts.

_Where is the truth?_

Crowley had always had some trouble figuring out anything about Jesus, but that was one of the reasons why she would always come back to check on her friend.

And there he was now. He was a grown man (had been for some time, actually), he was her friend, and he was about to die.

Crowley had been around since that afternoon at Lazarus’s funeral. She’d sensed a storm was coming, and she hadn’t been wrong.

Then she saw him in the crowd, as the people started to dwindle.

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?” she said, sneaking up on Aziraphale.

“Smirk? Me?” he answered with a hint of confusion, taken aback.

“Well, your lot put him on there.”

“I’m not consulted on policy decisions, Crawly.”

She immediately regretted being so unfair, so mean just to hide her sorrow, just to hide the fact that she couldn’t do anything to help him. Not with so many eyes watching them. And Aziraphale was right. They never informed him of such things.

This execution, more than a heavenly plot, smelled way too much of plain and simple human evilness.

“I’ve changed it.”

“Changed what?”

“My name.” She thought back to that time at the Temple, years before. _Wings as black as a crow’s._

The conversation was moving onwards slowly. It felt out of place – being there, chatting like that, before those three dying men. Even Aziraphale’s little jokes sounded toned down. Annoyed, even, tinted in black.

“…So what is it now?” he was guessing. “Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?”

“Crowley.”

Aziraphale _was_ there with her, at last. Heaven had apparently showed some tepid interest in Jesus; especially after all the talks of miracles that surrounded him, spread around by his human disciples and friends. Trying to make Jesus say something about them had always been like drawing blood from a stone. 

It was too late to try again now, anyway. There he was, hanging on the cross. His wrists and feet pierced by unforgiving nails. He was wailing softly. Even up there, on a cross full of needles made of wood and iron and thorns, he still stayed sweet and meek. Crowley found it confusing and exasperating.

_What are you doing up there? What did you ever do to deserve this?_ Then, like a black tide came another thought: _Did all of those children die to allow_ this _? Why? What kind of sick thing could that be?_

“What was it he said that got everyone so upset?” she asked in her puzzlement.

“‘Be kind to each other’,” Aziraphale said.

Then he _did_ know something, too. “Oh, yes. That’ll do it.”

The sting of hiding from Aziraphale the fact that she’d kept in touch with Jesus for thirty years only added to the grief of seeing her friend up there, punished like the worst of criminals, slowly withering away.

The cross had been raised now. It towered and cast its shadow in the crude white light on that small hill out of the city walls. It should have been the hottest hour of the afternoon, but everything looked strangely pale, grey and dim-lit.

“I’m thirsty,” Jesus was saying with the voice of a ghost that cracked Crowley’s bones in half.

She winced. The nails, the crown of thorns, the whipping, the agony. How could anyone withstand to see it all?

Her friend was dying right in front of her eyes. She closed her eyes as she realised she was not ready in the least for what was expecting her in the endless centuries to follow that moment.

_Maybe one day I’m going to tell you all about this, angel. But not today. I don’t know what I’d become, if I started telling you about him now._

\-------------

_It all began with the Three Wise Men  
Followed a star, took them to Bethlehem  
And made it heard throughout the land  
Born was a Leader of Man  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down to see the Lord Jesus  
All going down…_

**Intermission III  
**IT WAS BEAUTIFUL, BUT NOW IT’S SOUR

He remembered how exciting it was to be a knight. Of course, being the Black Knight was another thing altogether; he wasn’t supposed to be loyal to anyone or anything like that. He had never been a skilled rider, either – always falling off his steed, and the steed itself had never been kind to him in turn, either. Anyway, he had fun playing that part; besides, he could roam through the English countryside, and he’d always liked travelling. England didn’t look like a bad place, if a bit foggy.

But then Aziraphale started to come back from the Crusades, one after the other, and they would have one of their tentative encounters. The thrill of wearing a dark, shiny armour dimmed quickly like the light of a candle and became rusty with frustration and uselessness.

How atrocious that Her beloved creatures would purposefully slaughter one another in pointless wars made in the name of Jesus, just to hold a cup that his friend might have held so many centuries before.

Crowley, officially a demon from Hell, didn’t have enough heart to go check in person the horrible things Aziraphale told him.

\-------------

**London, today.**

It was night-time, and the room was safe and dark.

Crowley wasn't talking anymore. He just laid there, half-curled up in Aziraphale's warm and loving embrace, the both of them having moved from the living room sofa to that black hole that Crowley called ‘his bed’. They had been there for some time.

Though Crowley wasn’t speaking, there was no silence. The air was filled by Aziraphale’s hushed words and soothing whispers.

"I'm here, my love", the angel said. "I’m not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you." Aziraphale could have thought those words, and Crowley would have probably heard them all the same.

It had taken Crowley three whole days to recount everything, with many pauses to cry his heart out again and again. It had not been easy. Almost two thousand years had passed since Jesus’s death. Two thousand years of constant, quiet pain, two thousand years of loss and mourning that had come roaring up once he’d found out, after the averted Apocalypse, that Aziraphale was there to love him anyway. He could share his burdens with him, just as Aziraphale did with Crowley.

Crowley sniffed, his body resting boneless on the bed and against Aziraphale’s, his head in pain for all the crying, but his mind clear at last, his soul grateful like a dawn after a long night and transparent like glass.

“Are you feeling better?” Aziraphale whispered against his hair, petting it with soothing fingers.

Crowley nodded, shifting slightly to come closer, a lizard on a sunny rock.

“I’m so glad and relieved.” Aziraphale’s hand trailed down to trace comforting circles on Crowley’s back and, if possible, Crowley relaxed even more at the touch. “You’ve done something that you had the need to do for two millennia. I cannot imagine how taxing, how painful it must have been for you.”

Crowley hummed.

“But you made it.” Aziraphale’s soothing hand came to rub the back of his neck, with the gentle firmness of a moon revolving around its planet. “You made it to the end.”

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, his first words after some hours of silence. “I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. But it all happened back in those years when, you know – when we weren’t together like this. And then there was the Apocalypse business to be taken care of, we had to stay focussed – and when we made it through, this thing came back like a flood-”

“Crowley, oh, love.” Aziraphale tightened his arms around him a little. “I am sorry I couldn’t help you sooner. I’d never have wanted to force you into anything. I don’t know if I did right or wrong, and I don’t know if my advice could be any good. But just knowing that you have chosen to tell me everything, to unload yourself, is enough. I’m here to support you, to share that burden, if that’s you need.”

“But still, angel, even after all of these things I told you… I… I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. He’d had enough of crying, he felt angry and annoyed just at the mere thought of starting again, but his eyes were betraying him. “I. I still miss him. So much.”

“It’s only natural, love.” Crowley felt a soft cheek meeting his dishevelled hair, and if he leaned perhaps a little too much into it, neither of them said anything.

He tried to collect himself with some seconds of silence. He focussed on Aziraphale’s hands, his cheek resting on his head. The angel’s whole welcoming corporation was centring him and giving all the silent care that only an immortal being could provide, and that another immortal being could need. “I mean, I. Well. You and I made a nice amount of friends among humans, didn’t we, angel? And… and sometimes I think of Leonardo, and how he’d understood how we were two halves of the same painting even before _we_ did. I miss him, I miss telling him my wacky ideas and seeing him turn them into wonders of physics and mechanics, if only on paper. I miss Freddie. He was kind of- of an unofficial therapist to me for a time. He had such a big heart… Many of his songs actually talk about you and me, you know. It was all material provided by me.” He felt a smile on Aziraphale’s lips, messing his hair a tiny bit more. “Heaven, I even miss that Shakespeare bloke.”

“I can imagine. Just as much as I miss Oscar, I guess.”

“Exactly,” Crowley said, glad that Aziraphale had found something to which he, too, could relate. “But among all of them, Jesus… Jesus was… I don’t know. I can’t explain. Perhaps it’s because he’s been my first human friend, after those four millennia on Earth. But it all boils down to the fact that I just miss him so fucking much, angel. So fucking much. And I hate myself, because I feel I miss him more than I miss the others…”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Aziraphale said. “You can’t miss everyone equally, I suppose. Otherwise, it would feel like you actually missed nobody at all.”

Crowley sighed. “All those people,” he stuttered, “all those evil man and women who have said every sort of thing about him. The witch hunt. The crusades. The wars, the plots, the bigotry. All those people that said to act in his name, they didn’t know him. They weren’t there. What right do they have to spread hate in his name? How can they even sleep at night?”

“We don’t know how humans reason, love,” Aziraphale tried to comment. “It’s painful to think that he’s remembered like a person that spread hatred instead of love by those people. But I hope they’ll come to realise it in the end, when all is said and done.”

“Ah, and about that… what’s even worse,” Crowley sniffled, “is that when the End Times come again – when they come _for real_ – I mean. His soul must be… upstairs, now. And I… I don’t think I’ll be allowed to even look at him, ever again. Let alone talk to him.”

“Nonsense.” Aziraphale’s voice became firm, made of steel.

Crowley peeked up, diverting his attention from the button of Aziraphale’s pyjamas he’d been staring at. “How can you be sure?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll _make_ sure. I’ll carry you upstairs with me on that escalator if it kills me, should you want to see him again.”

Crowley buried his face in Aziraphale’s chest with a sigh. What a burden to share with him. Yet, now that he’d told him about it, he actually felt vaguely better. Aziraphale could understand, now.

“That won’t be necessary, though,” Aziraphale went on. “I want to make sure that you can visit him, or anyone else that could be upstairs, as freely and as often as you’d like.”

“But what if She doesn’t let you?”

“You know me, Crowley. She _will_ let me.” There was fire in Aziraphale’s words, the same fire that would have come out of the blade of his blazing sword.

Crowley snuggled inside those soft arms, grabbing a sleeve and stroking its soft fabric. He humming just a little. His bed, that black hole they were lying in, made him feel safe, and he was sure he’d always feel like this with Aziraphale at his side.

Humans, Crowley thought, were baffling little things. And yes, sometimes they were baffling in the worst possible way. But he remembered that there were so many moments in which they were simply the best thing on Earth. One step at a time, he would understand them better, be closer still to them, and find new friends for the short timespan of their mortal life. And Aziraphale would be there to make sure he’d meet them all again when time itself would finally collapse.

As he felt sleep call him to peace like a blessing, with Aziraphale’s hand still stroking his back, he smiled. He felt that optimism and imagination were finally coming back to him to take his hands and walk with him. He had every intention never to let them go.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello to me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/saretton). :)


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